Former Sports Minister Mahama Ayariga has charged corporate bodies to take up sponsorship of the various sports as part of their corporate social responsibility to help in the growth of sports in the country.

Mr Ayariga, who led the Ghanaian contingent to the Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea last year, is confident that sports is the strongest tool with which Ghana can be marketed.

Speaking at the just-ended McDan Open Championship, a tennis event organised yearly to churn out the best available talent for the national tennis team, Mr Ayariga said: “The key thing for sports is sponsorship. The more there is sponsorship, the more there are tournaments, and the more there will be young athletes coming through to the highest level.

“For me, championships like this one [McDan Tennis Open] is growing, it’s now become a West African affair. We hope that next year’s event will accommodate the whole of Africa and if there are sponsors coming on board, it can only get better.”

This year’s competition, which was for the first time opened to players from Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast, was dominated by Nigerians Michael Moses and Sarah Adegoke, for the men and women’s event, respectively.